The European right to be forgotten

Please cite this article in press as: Byrum, K. The European right to be forgotten: A challenge to the United

States Constitution’s First Amendment and to professional public relations ethics. Public Relations Review (2016),

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2016.10.010

ARTICLE IN PRESS G Model

PUBREL-1542; No. of Pages10

Public Relations Review xxx (2016) xxx–xxx

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Public Relations Review

The European right to be forgotten: A challenge to the United

States Constitution’s First Amendment and to professional

public relations ethics

Kristie Byrum (APR, Fellow PRSA) (Ph.D) ∗

Mass Communications, Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania, 1213 McCormick Center for Human Services 400 East Second Street,

Bloomsburg, PA 17815-1301, United States

a r t i c l e i n f o

Available online xxx

Keywords:

European data protection directive

First amendment

Public relations ethics

Constitutional law

Transparency

Ethics

Public relations

Marketplace of ideas

Professional communication, and freedom

of the press

a b s t r a c t

This paper explains how the European right to be forgotten violates the free flow of infor￾mation in society, as evidenced by conflicts with the United States Constitution and ethical

principles of professional communicators worldwide. As Europe imposes new data pro￾tection laws and incorporates the right to be forgotten that promotes censorship through

search engine de-linking, United States constitutional law scholars ponder the implications

of World Wide Web censorship, while journalists and public relations professionals strug￾gle to understand how accurate transparent communication could occur in an ecosystem

that allows for arbitrary information removal and the creation of memory holes. This article

explains why the European notion of the right to be forgotten challenges U.S. constitutional

law and professional public relations ethics, imperiling the online marketplace of ideas and

eroding disclosure of information. The European Data Protection Directive and recent right

to be forgotten movements directly conflict with the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment

and professional communications ethics codes. The First Amendment of the U.S. Bill of

Rights indicates the specific rights of citizens to freedom from government intervention

into freedom of expression and freedom of the press. Recent actions by Google to honor

European requests to remove data upon request collide with First Amendment theoretical

concepts and contemporary constitutional law. Both the Public Relations Society of America

(PRSA) and the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) construct ethi￾cal principles for members that call for the active promotion of the free flow of information

and the ethical disclosure of information. The European Data Protection Directive’s right to

be forgotten silences these core professional communication ethics and more significantly

imperils the robust information exchange in a global society, ultimately altering the dis￾course and debate in democratic countries. This paper addresses the status of the right to

be forgotten in the United States and indicates how adopting such a provision in the United

States would violate First Amendment theories, as evidenced by the Marketplace of Ideas

Theory,the Meiklejohnian Theory, and theAbsolutist Theory, and would counter traditional

public relations ethics codes, conducted in a context of dialogic ethics that calls for adher￾ence to core values advocating for transparency, disclosure, and free flow of information.

© 2016 Published by Elsevier Inc.

∗ Corresponding author.

E-mail address: [email protected]

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2016.10.010

0363-8111/© 2016 Published by Elsevier Inc.